Modern society has undoubtedly embraced the current information age in a favourable manner. Every country in the world considers the plethora of information available on the world wide web to be beneficial to their populace, and this has consequently led to heavy investment on data transmission infrastructure by governments in many countries to enable as many people as possible to access the information available on the world wide web. Thus, the heavy investment has led to economical and convenient access to the world wide web for people in many countries.
Unfortunately, the economical and convenient access to the world wide web has led to a set of problems which should not be overlooked. While a lot of the information on the world wide web is typically beneficial, a substantial portion of the information on the world wide web offers questionable benefit, where a person would need to apply both discretion and good sense when identifying aspects of the information which are beneficial and aspects of the information which are not beneficial. The identification of the aspects which are beneficial are usually easily carried out by people who have a certain level of maturity and perspective. However, children typically lack the level of maturity and perspective, and they may consequently be guided/misled in an inappropriate manner when they are unable to distinguish aspects of the information which are not beneficial.
The economical and convenient access to the world wide web has also led to an increasing incidence of communications being carried out over the world wide web. While communications being carried out over the world wide web has resulted in lowering of communications costs, the ease of communications with unfamiliar parties in, for instance, online chat rooms, social networking portals and so forth has led to a need for a person to apply both discretion and good sense during communications to avoid being preyed upon. Avoiding online “predators” is easier for people who have a certain level of maturity and perspective. However, children typically lack the level of maturity and perspective, and they may consequently be guided/misled in an inappropriate manner.
In addition, the easy and convenient access to the world wide web has led to efficiency issues in an office environment. While a lot of the information on the world wide web is typically beneficial for use in any particular profession, a substantial portion of the information on the world wide web offers questionable benefit and may cause unnecessary distractions to any person. A situation may arise whereby a person may be at a workstation but no work is actually being carried out by the person. This is detrimental to an efficiency of the person, and consequently an organization.
There are currently a variety of software applications which may be employed to monitor access to the world wide web. However, the aforementioned software applications typically rely on blocking of known (pre-defined) undesirable websites on the world wide web, and such a method is rather ineffective given the ease in setting up a website by third parties and the effectiveness of a search engine for the world wide web, such as, for example, Google, Yahoo, MSN, and so forth. The software applications are also locally installed, which leads to a higher probability of the software being subject to tampering. In addition, the aforementioned software applications are typically PC-based applications, leading to some difficulty in relation to monitoring access to the world wide web on devices other than PCs.
In view of the aforementioned issues, it would be desirable to attain a solution which is able to effectively monitor activities carried out by users at a computing device.